Beer Drinkers

http://dvice.com/archives/2012/09/beer-drinkers-d.php

This is an interesting read and if you come to the tasting room when we get it opened you will be seeing a lot of curved glasses so we can get you all through the beer and on to your next taster and hopefully keep the brewskis flowin.

What do you think? Do curvy glasses make you drink faster? I find it interesting that high gravity beers are usually served in curvy glasses as opposed to a regular pint glass. 

Let us know what you think the next time you see one of us. 

Cheers

Chris

Beerrrrrr

Well this is mighty embarrassing. We haven't has a blog post for a long time. Just to catch everyone up and let you all know that we are still here and working on things I decided to post a little update on where we are at(per Ashley's reminder). We here at _insert name here_ (we actually don't have a name anymore because we just found out the name we chose is being used by a brewery in Colorado...) have been working hard on getting things set in concrete here at the brewery and when I say we I really mean Ashley. She is incredible and the real backbone of this company. If she wasn't around Trav and I would probably be sitting around talking about how awesome it would be to own a brewery while drinking a homebrew and picking our noses listening to Old Crow Medicine Show. With that said we are starting to price out brewhouses and looking at what ingredients cost and trying to really nail down what and where we want to be as a Brewery. Look forward to more posts more frequently as well. Swoop woop ding dang woopty woop!

NOW ON TAP: THREE BEERS!

Beerindipity Mocha Stout, Master Will's ICA, and the Rye.P.A. 

Those of you who have spent time in the "Left of Center Brewhouse"  know that this line up is particularly exciting because we just put in the third tap!  A shout out should, at this point, go out to my fantastic Mother and Father, who gave us the tap for Christmas, "THANKS! Love you!" The first beer to be on the new tap is Morgan's Beerindipity Mocha Stout, it's Morgan's first beer ever.  How appropriate.  Sometime you should ask her how it got it's name, it's a good story of the universe unfolding as it should.

I don't have a lot to talk about on the beer front, we have been slacking after Parent's Weekend, but plan on doing a double batch sometime this week to make up for it. We only have 2 in fermenters, the Chocolate Burbon Stout, which ages until Christmas, and Cinco de Humdinger, the fifth version of the Humdinger IRA brewed on Cinco de Mayo.

With all the time not spent in the brewery, though, we have been spending our time gardening.  Somehow playing in the dirt is incredibly cleansing and the spring is starting to make itself known.  I noticed today that there was just one tiny patch of snow on Mary's Peak, it's time to plant! So, I thought I'd share some garden photos with you and tell you what we have going on.  Next time you come to the brewery you can also get a garden fresh salad.  Not pictured below are T's potatoes, our strawberry and rhubarb patch, and the yet to be planted other half of the garden.  

Hoop House with 14 tomatoes and some 

squash and pumpkin seedlings in front.

Hops! Mt. Hood, Willamette, and Fuggles.  

We got the Fuggles (middle) last year at the Market 

and the others this year, as rhizomes, at the Brew Shop.

Sunflowers, Dill, Lettuce, Spinach, Thyme, and Oregano

Josta Berries from T's Grandpa

Can anyone name this?  We're stumped.

It also came from T's Grandpa.

Enjoy your spring and I wish you happy growing!

Beer, Beer and More Beer!

2012 Chocolate Bourbon Stout

Today we are brewing the 2012 installment of the Chocolate Bourbon Stout. This will be the third time that Ashley has brewed this recipe. This version will be fermented over the next few weeks and then conditioned with Bourbon until the Christmas Season. It will be a full-bodied Stout with flavors of Chocolate, Roasted malts, Vanilla, Bourbon and Oak. As always the Chocolate Bourbon Stout is sure to help beat away the winter chill with around 8.5% ABV.  We look forward to sharing this special beer with you later this year.

Three Batch Day

This last Thursday was a busy day in the brewery. With final preparations for Parents Weekend underway and the ever present desire to have something to go into the Kegerator next, we brewed three separate batches.

We started the day off by brewing Master Will's India Cream Ale. Inspired by the one and only Master Will himself this is a beer not to be reckoned with. A light unassuming color and body draws the drinker in and when they least expect it they learn the true nature of this beer. Master Will's is liberally hopped with Cascade, Citra and Mt. Hood hops creating a big hop flavor and aroma. This beer has the full hop character of an IPA sitting upon a crisp and smooth light ale body. Cream Ales have Lager like characteristics with a bit more body thanks to the blend of Lager and Ale yeast strains. Be sure to stop by soon to try this wonderful variation of the beloved IPA.

The afternoon brought a special occasion to the Brewery. Morgan was able to brew her fist ever batch of beer.  She chose to brew a Chocolate Espresso Stout. With a large amount of Chocolate Malt and Cocoa Nibs this will be a Chocolate Lovers dream. The addition of Espresso will round out this Dark, Rich beauty of a Stout. Be sure to stay tuned for other batches coming from Morgan.

The third and final batch for the day was a No Boil Wheat. A very simple all Wheat grain bill and the use of a technique called Mash Hopping allowed us to brew this batch in about half of the time. By mixing all of the hops for the beer into the Mash Tun so they could steep in the hop liquid we were able to get enough hop character that we did not need to boil this batch. We were able to transfer straight from the Mash Tun to our Fermenter. The beer cooled over night and in the morning we pitched our yeast. This will be a very hazy Wheat Ale which will be on tap at Parents Weekend in a few weeks.

Stop by the brewery and be sure to try out a few of the current beers on tap. We look forward to seeing you all soon.

Peace

Travis

Che Loco 5

                                               (Yerba Mate in its natural environment)

I'm not really sure what happened to me but the other day I created the most epic post ever and decided to try saving the post and having blogger post it 2 days later for me just to see if it worked. Well Obviously it didn't because I am doing a different post right now.

For those of you who don't know I went to Argentina to visit my Tim my brother who was there for 8 months with his fiance Sylvie. We traveled around Buenos Aires and the North West of the country partly on bikes to Missiones/Apostales (Yerba Mate Mecca). While there I fell in love with Yerba Mate(Mahteh) through Tim who taught me almost everything I know about making a "rico mate". I really enjoy culture and processes and making the perfect mate combines both of those. I won't bore you with the details of making a proper mate, but ever since I traveled there back in August of 2010 I have been drinking mate almost on a daily basis. Naturally my love for mate and my love for beer collided when I brewed my first batch of beer back in January of 2011. The birth of Che Loco happened on the 2nd of January and since then I have never looked back.

Today's post is all about yerba mate and of course beer! Tonight I am racking a Scottish inspired ale onto some french pressed mate with water additions at the proper temperatures to extract all the good flavors of the yerba shrub and leave all the bad behind. This will be the 5th incarnation of Che Loco (named by Zach Ruttenberg one night at Tim and Sylvie's apartment in Portland) "Che" inspired by the revolutionary Che Guevara and "Loco" after the 4 loco craze. Because mate naturally contains caffeine its energizing you while its slowing you down all at the same time. In the past I have created different Che Loco batches that are either too offensive to the "non mate appreciator" and not intense enough for the "mate aficionado". With this batch I hope to get one step closer to the Goldilocks of Che Loco's so I can start creating the same beer consistently for your drinking pleasure. With that said I am going to start racking this beer from primary fermenter to tertiary onto my secret mixture of mate. I will let you know how it turns out! Or even better yet hopefully you will get to taste it soon!

Cheers

Chris

Parents Weekend Saison a.k.a. Mom Beer

Well here we are already at the end of March. With only a month left until the Second Annual Parents Weekend, preparations are underway. Yesterday evening we brewed a very special beer for the weekend. The Parents Weekend Saison a.k.a. Mom Beer. (Don't worry Dads there will be plenty for you guys as well.)

Saison's are a wonderful style of beer traditionally from Belgium. They were originally brewed in the summer months due to the specialty yeast strains needing much warmer fermentation temperatures than your standard ales. Our's is fermenting away like crazy while sitting on our fermenter heater (Thanks Paul and Joyce). A Saison has a light straw colored body with some hazyness left behind from the yeast. With the warmer fermentation temps the yeast releases some very fruity esters that are present in the aroma and flavor of the finished product. There is mild hoppyness to the beer allowing the malts and yeast to shine. We will be aging this version of Mom Beer with French Oak to create a nice "Barrel Aged" character, as well as dried Grapefruit Peel and Rose Hips. In honor of all our mothers being the incredible women they are, we will be making this beer a bit Sassy with just a hint of Sassafras.

I hope you all have blocked out the dates for Parents Weekend at the end of April. We are in the works of locking down a Beach House and will have finalized plans out to you all soon. Until then raise your glass to the incredible families in your lives. We look forward to seeing you all at the beach soon.

Beer, as always, is happening around here.  Today, we are brewing up a Nut Brown, this is the third version of the Nut Brown we've brewed.  It's a simple recipe but it turned out well the first two times.  We grabbed a bottle of He'Brew Nut Brown and plan to drink that as we brew this one.  Has anyone had that one before?  What about other favorite Nut Browns? Why?

But what else is going on in our beer world?  Well... lots.  Travis bottled the Biere de Garde a few days ago.  It'll be entered into 3 different competitions, we'll let you know how that goes.  That bottling experience made us remember why we built a kegerator.  It's so much easier to just rack into a keg instead of cleaning bottles, and sanitizing bottles, and racking into a bottling bucket, and filling the bottles, and capping the bottles.  One step instead of five lets us brew so much more!  Travis also tried bottling from the kegerator today.  It worked, but we'll have to see how the carbonation stays.

The Amber went into a keg today.  It should be good, coming in at about 5.5% ABV. The Chinook One Hop IPA and Charlie's Milk Steak Stout are in the secondary fermenter. Those two will be great and very different from one another.  We've got a malty, roasty, thick beer with the Charlie's and a light, hoppy, smooth beer with the Chinook.  So, come by in about 2 weeks to get a taste of those.

We also have a few plans to sink further into the brewing lifestyle.  We plan on joining HOTV Homebrewers Club next month. Also, I'm planning on hatching a little "club" for Beer Lovin' Ladies.  If you or someone you know would be interested get me some contact info (or great ideas).  I want to have tastings, poker nights, brewing days, and all around good times celebrating babes and beer.

That's it for now. Come enjoy a beer with us soon. XO